Last year, when Meizu launched the m2 Note, it went on to become the best budget smartphone under the 10k category in India. It may have skipped on a fingerprint scanner, but as a whole package, it was able to outperform the Yu Yureka Plus and the Coolpad Note 3. It had an intuitive UI, the performance and battery life were well balanced, the display was brilliant, and the camera was quite good as well. The m2 Note is being replaced by the m3 Note, and the new device promises the same qualities of the m2 Note along with upgraded hardware and a full metal unibody design. We got a chance to try it out at its launch in Beijing, and here are our first impressions.
If you have seen the previous Meizu m2 Note smartphone or any Meizu phone for that matter, you will immediately identify this one. The design of the m3 Note is not radically different from previous Meizu phones, but at a fleeting glance, it looks similar to the iPhone 6, which is not really bad. It has rounded edges adding to ergonomics, and the addition of a 2.5D curved glass on top adds to the design quotient. The decision of keeping a single home-back button that is also a fingerprint scanner is still debatable, but as we have mentioned in our previous Meizu reviews, it is quite simple to use once you get the hang of it. We won't comment on the UI of the phone as of now because at launch we only saw the Chinese variant of the smartphone, which is sold without the Google Play Store.
We found the build quality of the Meizu m3 Note to be slightly better than the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. Like the Redmi Note 3, the m3 Note also uses metal in its build, but unlike it, the back panel is not slippery. The 5.5-inch display on the device is quite the looker, and uses an LTPS panel that offers a more uniform colour gamut. On initial impressions, we found the display to have good viewing angles, and it is bright enough to be used under the sun.
Meizu plans to bring the phone as a competitor to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, giving us hope that it will be priced at around the 10k mark in India. Meizu has equipped the m3 Note with the new MediaTek Helio P10 SoC, and during its launch, the company claimed that it has been working on this phone for more than six months to get the best performance out of it. Has it worked? We’ll have to wait until we get the Indian version of the device in hand, to know more.
Coming to the camera, the Meizu m3 Note comes with a standard set of a 13MP rear and 5MP front cameras. The rear camera seemed quite able in producing good images in decent lighting conditions, and like most cameras in this budget, the image quality deteriorates under low light. The colour reproduction seems to be quite true to source, but images are noisy at full crop. We believe it may be improved by the time it hits Indian markets next month. Check out our initial camera samples below:
Image Sample 1: Outdoor (Overcast)
Image Sample 2: Indoor (Warm)
Another similarity to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is its battery. The phone is quite thin, and still packs in a 4100mAh battery, which Meizu claims will provide 17 hours of screen-on time between charges. That is a big claim to make, but not entirely impossible. Previously, the m2 Note had good battery life, and if Meizu has done its homework right, we might be looking at the best budget smartphone for now, with impressive battery life to boot.
According to company officials, the Meizu m3 Note is coming to India next month, and will be priced quite competitively. We certainly hope so.
Buy Meizu m3 note at Rs.9999 on amazon